On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the launch of the Iraq war, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are competing over who is best suited to lose it. Obama touts his judgment in opposing the war from the beginning. Clinton brags that she has “the knowledge and confidence to bring our troops home.” In speeches marking the fifth year of the war, both demonstrated just how determinedly out of touch the Democrats have become with Iraq war as it is, as opposed to how they wish it were.
Both promise to withdraw one or two U.S. combat brigades a month, with Obama specifying that at that pace “we can remove all of them in 16 months.” He stipulates that this will not be “a precipitous drawdown.” One trembles to think how he would define such a drawdown, since he is proposing removing the troops as quickly as believes would be logistically possible.
With our departure, Iraq would lose the most responsible and proficient security force in the country, the force that trains the Iraqi army by working with it closely in combat operations and that has put a lid on the civil war, making a return to a kind of normality possible in many parts of Iraq. It would be wonderful if Iraq were stable enough that it wouldn’t backslide with us gone, but no one in Iraq — not the U.S. command, not the Iraqi government — believes this to be the case.
No matter. Clinton and Obama ignore that, just as they ignore the progress that’s been made over the last year. Clinton says President Bush and John McCain “want to keep us tied to another country’s civil war, a war we cannot win.” Clinton seems unaware that we have succeeded in drastically diminishing Iraqi sectarian strife. She says by the summer “we’ll be right back at square one with 130,000 or more troops on the ground in Iraq.” But it’s not square one if those 130,000 troops are in an Iraq where the civil war has been tamped down, U.S. casualties are lower, and al-Qaeda is on the run.
Retailing the standard Democratic rationale for a drawdown, Obama says “fighting a war without end will not force the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future.” This statement needs some unpacking. Obama is not really proposing to end the war, either, because even as we draw down, extremists will continue their attacks. It is only U.S. involvement he wants to end. All of us want Iraqis to take responsibility for their future, but it matters which Iraqis are doing so and how. Without us, the most dangerous armed elements in the country will be more likely take over. Obama apparently doesn’t care who ends up running the country, as long as they are Iraqis.
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